Searching for car finance agreements

Bmwbmwbmw2023

Did have a look for this before posting but couldn’t find a thing.

We’ve been searching for quite some time now for details of my car finance agreements. Between myself, my partner, and my mum, we’ve had 17 finance agreements since 2007 across various vehicles. We’ve been able to contact most of the companies involved after identifying which lenders provided the finance, but we still have some gaps.

I often see adverts on platforms like Instagram and YouTube claiming they can locate all your finance agreements in seconds. How does this work? Is there a service available that can provide all of this information in one place? I assume that once you sign up with these companies, they then take responsibility for pursuing any potential claims.

Edi81

They just contact all of the car finance companies and you agree to pay them a portion of any money you are entitled to. 

Same thing as PPI. 

Nasqueron

Bmwbmwbmw2023 said:

Did have a look for this before posting but couldn’t find a thing.

We’ve been searching for quite some time now for details of my car finance agreements. Between myself, my partner, and my mum, we’ve had 17 finance agreements since 2007 across various vehicles. We’ve been able to contact most of the companies involved after identifying which lenders provided the finance, but we still have some gaps.

I often see adverts on platforms like Instagram and YouTube claiming they can locate all your finance agreements in seconds. How does this work? Is there a service available that can provide all of this information in one place? I assume that once you sign up with these companies, they then take responsibility for pursuing any potential claims.

They're scammers, falsely claiming they can find your details - they cannot, there is no central registry of your finance history that a third party could access. At best I would guess they have some data on which firms used which finance companies and go based on that.
Given the whole thing is on hold and there is mention of a scheme where they contact you anyway, it's best to wait, there is no harm in doing so, complaints cannot be time barred

dunstonh

I often see adverts on platforms like Instagram and YouTube claiming they can locate all your finance agreements in seconds. How does this work? 

Its called lies.  Social media scams.

 Is there a service available that can provide all of this information in one place

No. The data is not in the public domain.

I assume that once you sign up with these companies, they then take responsibility for pursuing any potential claims.

No.  They will just email the major lenders with your name and address and ask them to look into any finance you had.  They send spreadsheets of names and addresses and create masses of work.

This is in part why the FCA are looking to put in place a redress scheme that will prevent claims companies from ripping off consumers.

Antibalderdash

Some firms will have a credit checking service that can pull up a credit report of sorts and this can show any finance agreement that has been ongoing in the last 6 years. This will show the length of the agreements, the finance provider's name, and the finance agreement number. (nb: you can also do this yourself by requesting a statutory credit report from like Experian which you can do for free)

A cmc/firm can then get in touch with the finance provider via a DSAR and request the details.  Anything past the 6 year period is a bit harder but you could also try to look at historical bank statements if your bank has them to figure out what companies you were paying finance for.

Older data might be harder to find though given how long ago it was, and some finance providers have specific data retention policies that might mean that they don't have any information from 15 years ago.  I'd say it's important to have a copy of the finance agreement though since that will indicate a number of points which might indicate if you have a case or not - a law firm/cmc would want this information to establish quantum too. 

You really don't need a firm to do any of this and lodge a complaint, but obviously if you wanted it to go through court as a claim then a firm/solicitor might be better, but the vast majority of introducers/claims management companies out there currently have just been trying to manipulate consumers into signing up for them since 2024 when the FCA began their investigation.